Mystical Bladeworks
by Tailred
Summary: So what if Sword Art Online was not a game void of magic? What if it was such a party based game, there was no way for a clearer to play solo? And what if another rather cynical character decided to take on the narrating job? This is my take on the Sword Art Online Aincrad arc through they eyes of my OC.
1. Chapter 1 Welcome to the Death Game!

**A/N:** The one really big author's note because I don't really plan on doing them that much for this story, no one reads them anyways.

This is a reboot of the Aincrad arc with magic added. For some reason I don't like ALfheim at all, so here's to giving Aincrad a more MMO like feel. I'm throwing in a self-insert wish fulfillment OC as the narrator because I feel like it. If you don't like that, don't read it. I'm going to try and make things more the way I wish they would have been, which means, more MMO mechanics and a more broken Kirito.

I honestly don't like Reki Kawahara's characterization. So I'm going to try and spice up each character, and hopefully turn Asuna into a character I don't hate by taking more than a little inspiration from the writing of the Haruhi Suzumiya series. As in, 90% of the seriousness of SAO is going to be shot by my OC's internal monologue.

My OC is the narrator for the series, but don't expect him to pull any Kirito stunts. He is a power gamer through and through, so his character will obviously be more powerful than most from a statistics standpoint, however, I don't intend to give him some sort of special place as a super powerful clearer or anything like that. He will be up there with clearers at the top of the game, but not Kirito or Heathcliff level or probably even Asuna level. He's also going to be ambiguously labeled as a Caucasian foreigner from a country where people speak English. If you want that to be England, Canada, or America, feel free to think that.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Sword Art Online, Reki Kawahara does. The stupid OC that most people will drop this story because of? Yeah he's mine.

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><p><strong>«Welcome to the Death Game!»<strong>

"Get Sword Art Online!" They said. "It'll be fun!" They said. Yeah right. Well… maybe that's not entirely false, I mean this game is pretty freaking fun, but the whole if you die in game you die in reality thing puts a damper on things you know?

I'm Shou, it means soaring, however it's not my real name, but we can ignore the details, because, as it stands now, it might as well be my real name. I along with a few other friends went off on a magical journey to Japan to go buy this game, «Sword Art Online», which was being released exclusively there. Well I was really on a school trip, and the only one to actually buy the game, but no one cares about the details. Why would we leave our home countries for a game you ask? Why, it's a VR game, and not just any VR game, but the world's first VRMMO and the first game to give players a physical form after entering VR! Now this may seem like the best thing ever, and it might still be, but there's a catch that we, the players, were recently informed of. It may seem like common sense to you the reader; however, to us gamers, this was an extremely disturbing revelation; people die if they are killed.

At the moment I'm standing in the plaza of the starting town along with every other player of «Sword Art Online» listening to a talking cloak who claims to be the creator of this game telling us about how if we die, we don't come back, and how we can't leave. Now I'm pretty freaking happy, and I guess a little worried, probably scared somewhat too, but the idea that I never have to leave seems pretty great. On the other hand, everyone around me didn't seem too fond of the prospect. I can't blame them though. I doubt I'd die easily cause I'm a pretty good stat muncher if I say so myself, so I can probably find a nice way to exploit the system, become a Marty Stu, and wreck; at least in comparison to most players. Years of competitive gaming does that to a guy.

My more jovial mood changed, a lot when I heard that 213 people had already died. That scared me, but more than that it pissed me off. I understand that from this point on most of the people who die will be stupid, but those first few hundred had no way of knowing or taking precaution. They thought this was a game and didn't have any reason to try and stay alive. That wasn't fair. I do _not_ like it when things aren't fair.

Mr. Cloak, AKA Kayaba, the man who I currently believe is a genuine idiot and should be executed, finally decided to start talking again after standing still for dramatic effect for a stupidly long time as all big bads do, "Finally let me prove to you all that this is your only reality. I've prepared a gift for all of you. You may find it in your inventory."

I opened my inventory and pulled out the new item «Hand Mirror». I looked at and saw my awesome avatar staring back at me. Next I saw a bright light. Then I saw my real self in the mirror. After that I made that sound three year olds make when their parents won't let them eat any sweets until they finish their vegetables. Staring back at me in the mirror was my average height, dark red haired, blue eyed, fifteen year old self. The same glow spread to the people standing around me, and much to my chagrin, turned into their normal Japanese selves, leaving me to stand out even more than I already did with my ridiculous anime hair color that everyone thought was dyed. Then they just started screaming again. For the love of God stop screaming people, nobody on the outside can hear you and it won't do any, well… anything really.

Well, that just spoiled my day. I mean, I spent two hours working on that avatar, and for what? It looked really cool, and now my only distinguishing feature is my odd hair and eye color combination, and I suppose my race, but that's beside the point. Anyways, let's take a look at the situation. The news stations were probably blaring this information by now and sending people to hospitals, so the whole world should know in about 23 seconds. The sheer speed and power of the internet was truly a force to be reckoned with. I had snuck out of my trip's scheduled events to buy the game, but I was now in my hotel room. I had a friend cover for me under promise that I'd let him play the game so I could wait in line overnight to buy the game. Everyone on my trip should be back soon, including my roommates, so I shouldn't have to worry about my body. The real problem was how long I was going to be trapped here. My family would undoubtedly worry, and I'd probably be eternally banned from not just video games, but all technology until I moved out. Ah well, such is life. I'm sure governments from around the world would try to crack into the system to boot us out, meaning we may only be trapped a few days. The "people die if they are killed" thing scares me a bit, buts it's balanced out by "I'm in a video game, and I don't have to leave… ever." Yeah I'm just over thinking things, I want to stay in a game, but I don't want to die, why must the world be made of such difficult compromises.

So ignoring the above internal conflict that is impossibly hard to follow, Mr. Cloak disappeared magmagically, leaving the now largely male population of the game to scream like little girls. Now the whole there are no girls on the internet thing is false. There were still a large amount of girls here; it's just that the guys held a 65-70% majority.

With most of the players running around like chickens' with their head's cut off, I ducked out of the main plaza and into a nearby building to formulate some kind of plan, or, as what was far more likely to happen, completely overthink everything, waste my time, and spend the next until we get released from this game trying to catch up to the top players.

Anyways I've got to come up with a survival plan. «Sword Art Online» is very much a party based MMORPG, so my top priority should be finding a party, but that takes social skills… bleh. My next priority should be formulating my build, as it stands; we have five stats plus our HP and MP, and gain a few skill points each level. Strength determines a lot of what you can wield, and damage per hit, so it's not to be neglected to the auto increase at each level, Agi determines our movement speed, Vit determines out physical resistance, Mag is our magic damage, and Res is our magic resistance. I've always run a burst controller of some sort, usually a gish (magic swordsman for those who don't know), but I'm not sure if that's even possible right now. My top priority is my agility stat, then I suppose magic and strength. I won't need much defense investment if I never get hit. Yeah that thinking might get me killed.

While I stood in that random building thinking about stats and getting absolutely nowhere, I overheard some talking in the alley behind the door I was standing near, "Klein, listen up. I'm leaving this city right now and heading for the next village. If what he said was true then we'll have to get stronger and stronger in order to survive. I'm sure you already know that MMORPGs are a battle over system resources."

In a way I suppose they are, but 99% of the resources are infinite in the games I've played. But how the hell do you know where the next village is? The game's only been out for a few hours and the size of this floor is larger than the entire map of Skyrim, which, might I add, was considered one of the largest worlds in gaming ten years ago. And there were one hundred floors to this game; that makes SAO the single largest non-randomly generated map outside of player made Minecraft maps. That game is absurd though. To-scale maps of whole countries are a bit excessive.

I leaned against the door and listened as the voice continued, "There's only so much gold, loot, and experience to go around, so the more you win the stronger you get. Everyone's going to have the same idea, so the fields around the Town of Beginnings will be cleaned out in no time. You'll be forced to wander around, endlessly waiting for mobs to repop. We need to take this opportunity to set up base in the next town. I know the way, and I know which spots are dangerous. I can get us there safely, even at level one."

My Japanese may not be the greatest, but I'm pretty sure this guy just said he knows the way around the first floor entirely already. Considering how the game's been online for around six hours and walking to the next town would take almost the entirety of that time, and considering how much time it would take to find the safest route, he's got to be a beta tester, in other words, my lucky break.

I raised my fist and smacked it into my palm as if I had just realized something monumental. Then I leaned back against, and fell through, the door, landing on my back facing the massive stone ceiling that is floor two. Not my greatest moment, but not my worst. At least I wouldn't have to stalk the beta tester just to work up the courage to talk to him. That sounded a whole lot worse than I initially pictured it.

Feeling a little dizzy from the fall, I sat up and looked at the two people hosting the conversation I had been listening in on. One looked about my age, probably a year or so younger. He was normal height for his age with black hair and black eyes, a pretty normal looking Japanese kid, which was kinda rare in a game that you had to stand outside for 18 hours just to get a copy of. The other was an older guy in his late teens or early twenties with, wait for it, almost there, keep waiting, red freaking hair. That's right folks, I am not the only redhead in this game. My hair was a much more vibrant crimson than his almost matte red. He looked pretty scruffy, your normal around twenty gamer, except he had eyes like a dead fish.

I reached behind my head and nervously scratched the back of my hair, "S-sorry about that, I um, fell." My obviously unpracticed Japanese evident in my voice. I'll have you know that started taking Japanese in the 6th grade as a means of understanding anime without having to read those blasted subtitles, so I boast a much higher level of understanding of the language than the rest of my class, it's just that I never speak it or practice it since I just coast by on perfect written and hearing exams.

The red haired man chuckled and spoke up, "Ha! I needed something like. The name's Klein mysterious falling stranger."

"H-hi, I'm Shou." I notice the black haired boy snuck back a small bit, obviously the asocial type. Not exactly sure what someone that antisocial was doing in a VRMMO, wait a second… please pay no heed to that last statement as it never existed in the first place.

I quickly scrambled to my feet and sunk back into the doorway a small bit. Klein continued with the conversation he held with the black haired boy, "Kirito, remember what I said earlier? I have some friends that I stood in line with all night to buy this game. They're probably logged in and still back in the plaza. I can't just leave them."

The black haired boy became very sullen. Klein seemed to pick up on this and continued, "Nah… I can't ask for more help than you've already given. Hell, I used to be a guild leader back in the last game. Don't worry, I'll get by with techniques you taught me. Besides, there's still the possibility that this was all a giant prank and we'll be able to log out in no time. Just go on ahead and don't mind me, actually, if you want to take someone, why don't you take this kid?" he proclaimed, gesturing to me.

Now I know I'm not exactly the social type, and I'd probably find things most people consider normal completely outlandish, but that had to be a really strange request. I fell out of a door and interrupted your conversation, so now I'm your replacement as Kirito's travelling buddy seeing as you have other commitments? I do see where you are coming from though. He is your friend and you are concerned about letting him travel on his own in a game that meant life or death, but asking him to take a random stranger with him is kind of absurd.

Kirito looked about as shocked as I was, and Klein was a lot more perceptive than I initially thought so he of course picked up on it, "I know that sounds a little weird, but hear me out. Shou right? You are new right?"

"Y-yes." I nodded.

"You're not Japanese, and you don't speak much of the language do you?"

"I u-understand it, b-but I am not used to s-speaking it. I-I'm a f-foreigner and I bought the game w-while on v-vacation."

"Okay. Do you know how to use sword skills?"

"I r-read the m-manual."

"Alright, Kirito, this kid is a new player and needs someone to teach him how to play just like I did."

Kirito the quickly chimed in, muttering under his breath, but still speaking for the first time since I so rudely interrupted, "At least he read the read the manual."

Klein's composure completely fell apart. "H-hey now. I learned how to use sword skills right. Nobody even reads the instructions anyways." He stuttered out while waving his arms around as if he were a bird ready to take flight.

Kirito and I both began chuckling a little bit at his antics. I guess that was my first little bit of insight into Kirito. For all his front, he was a pretty good person underneath.

Klein quickly regained his composure, "Anyway, you should take him and teach him how to fight. Sword Art Online is a party game. It's not something meant to be played alone and I don't want you getting killed before me, so take Shou as a back-up."

Both Kirito any myself remained silent. I wasn't the type of person to butt into a conversation or try and get my way, even if I did, at least a little, want to tag along with a beta tester. Kirito was probably feeling some amounts of pressure. Klein had pretty much told him to babysit me so he and I aren't killed.

"Shou, Kirito here is a beta tester, I'm sure he could help you a lot, so what do you say?" Klein looked at me a little impatiently. I'm sure he was concerned for his friends and was just trying to speed things along here.

I looked at Kirito and then at the ground, "I-I would r-really appreciate the help, but I don't mean to impose."

"See Kirito, the kid needs your help."

Kirito turned around and spoke in no particular direction, "Okay… We'll part ways here then Klein. Shoot me a message if anything comes up. Shou, we're going to need to head out as fast as possible. Have you bought the gear you need?"

I quickly muttered a yes and mouthed the words 'that you' towards Klein.

Klein waved at us as we began walking away, "Hey Kirito, you look pretty cute after all! Just my type!"

Kirito called back over his shoulder, "And you look ten times better now that you're a mountain bandit!"

He then began running forward, and followed after. That must've been pretty hard to part with a friend like that, so I'm sure Kirito wanted to get out of town as fast as he could. We also needed to get to a good grinding spot near the second town before the plebs come along and take them all. With a mixture of sadness, anxiety, and oddly excitement, we headed off together to start our epic battle for survival.

Two thousand players were dead within a month, and I still can't find any ice cream.

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><p><strong>AN:** One more thing, what do you guys think about the format of this story?


	2. Chapter 2 Taking It All In

**A/N:** I'm looking for a beta reader to help make this whole thing more understandable. I suppose my OC's narration is a little hard to follow at times and would like some help pl0x.

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><p><strong>«Taking it all in»<strong>

It appears my initial thoughts on the matter of this game were wrong. It has been over one month since we started this game, and we still have no contact with the outside world. I'd initially assumed we'd last a week tops before some government broke in, but that estimates been proven wrong. Based on the information I've gathered, were still here because of the games effective admin/owner/moderator, the Cardinal System. It seems to be a highly advanced virtual intelligence system capable of repelling attempts to attack it. It's also responsible for the changing attack patterns in the mobs we've been noticing, but that's really minor.

Unfortunately the lack of contact with the outside world had driven a large portion of the player base into the depths of despair, not that our still having not cleared the first floor was helping any. As it stands, the game is split into around four different groups. The first group made up around half of the players in Aincrad. They were those who believed Kayaba's conditions for release and chose to try and wait it out by staying alive in the Town of Beginnings where they remained safe. I can't blame these people for not helping try to clear the game. After a month on the first floor, I was beginning to wonder whether the whole process was possible. The first group was made up of filthy casuals in the real world who lacked the natural skill with magic or weapons, and the knowledge to break a character's stats.

The second group contained about 30 percent of the player base and was referred to as the Army. The Army was a pretty good idea for the less gutsy players who still wanted to help clear the game. It also gave the first group some hope and a sense of safety. The leader of the Army was a pretty chill dude who used to write for a gaming website focused towards MMO called MMO Today. The goal of the Army was to provide a safe leveling environment and ensure an equal distribution of goods and col, the currency of this world. The Army also had many experience gamers who helped players build uniform parties with the standard roles which really helped out in their mission to provide a safe leveling environment.

The third group was made up of the vagabonds of the game, around a thousand or so players, but decreasing every day. These guys were the players who didn't believe they would be trapped here and wasted their funds early on. They provided a steady stream of new meat for the army to train into their uniform little parties. Some of these guys had turned to crime though. As much as I don't want to think about it, some players had become desperate enough to attack others and in some cases, kill, to get col so they could support themselves. The only form of pain in this game is hunger, and that hunger pain is real. You also start losing health if you go too long without eating, so just as in reality; you have to eat to live. From these criminals we learned of the player identification system. It was pretty much the same as the mob identification system. Green markers identified normal players, orange markers identified players who had attacked others as well as neutral mobs, and red markers identified hostile mobs and player killers. Orange markers went away over time, but as far as we've learned, the red markers were permanent.

Finally we have the fourth group, or the 'guilds.' This group of five hundred or so was rather undefined as the guild creation quest was on the fifth floor, or so Kirito had told me. I belonged to this group along with Klein and Kirito. We were the serious players who didn't want to join the army. Instead we formed our own little groups for partying and adventuring. Typically the groups had common meeting places in one of the two towns' many inns and taverns, so the populous began referring to us as guilds. «Sword Art Online» was not friendly to solo players. You had to be some sort of dual wielding crazy boss soloist to be a solo player. In short, it was impossible. Even Kirito who is even more terrified of people than I am consistently parties with at least one other person who can provide magic support for his heavily mundane build. Only about half of us actually behaved like guilds, Klein's group was the prime example, heck, they even had a name, Furrinkazan. The other half was what Kirito and I fell into. We collected into groups of people we found tolerable, plus the rat Argo, and paired up with whoever was going adventuring at the same time we were. The group Kirito and I belonged to was rather small, as in we only had three members until a few days ago, so we pretty much had the same party the whole time, and a horribly imbalanced one at that.

Currently I'm trying to find ice cream. Yes, ice cream. This is a bit of a tale so I'll start from the beginning. After having been trapped here for a few weeks, I, along with many others, although I claim to be the first, discovered a severe problem with our current situation: the food. I'm not from Japan, so my taste pallet was much different from the other players here, and the first floor had pretty much nothing but bread and simple European influenced Japanese dishes to fit the theme of the floor. I quickly realized that I missed my kind of food. Thankfully Kirito had discovered something amazing. Cooking was a hidden skill within «Sword Art Online»! It was also surprisingly easy to obtain. All you had to do was try to combine two food items and you could cook. Unfortunately, real cooking skill does correspond to cooking skill in game at least a little, and as I discovered, Kirito's entire diet of self-made food was awfully similar to mine in how it consisted of one item, cup ramen.

Yet again thanks to Kirito, we added a third member to out duo at the time, a pretty girl around the same age as us called Asuna. Apparently she was one of those super noob players who had somehow stayed alive soloing the same set of weak mobs in the fields around the Town of Beginings. She had decided to branch out and try leveling on stronger stuff since boars could only take you so far when she discovered that this was not a solo game. Thankfully Kirito who had been partying with Klein and one of his guild mates ran into her and managed to save her. The details of which they both refuse to tell me. Actually Kirito had tried a few times, but Asuna quickly made it clear that she did not want anyone finding out. Anyways Asuna is a great cook and is the only reason I didn't die of the terrible food yet.

Now back to the ice cream. As I said earlier the food problem wasn't just exclusive to me, everyone was feeling it. Including a person with whom I had been trying to get a weapon out of. After having NPC weapons break on me countless times and having no such luck with mob drops unlike Kirito and Asuna who had broken weapons for the first floor, I had decided to go cough up some money to Argo the information broker and get the names of all the blacksmiths who could create good weapons. After shopping around for what seemed like forever, I finally found a smith who had created a weapon I liked. I wanted a scimitar, or at the very least a falchion for their great slashing prowess and high natural damage, and not a normal scimitar like those brainless mooks in Aladin carry around, but a very thin one.

You see I had been working on my gish build and had discovered a problem. After casting a spell, the cool down was doubled if you wanted to swap to a sword skill, not only that, but there was a minimum ten second delay between the switches, regardless of what skill you used. Now I had found a loophole in the system. While sword skills were locked, the use of a sword wasn't. I had focused my spell training into buffs of all kinds, and more recently, touch spells, which were unlocked as a special skill like Katana use was, from the excessive use of my sword while under the effects of spells. The problem was, while I could buff myself up to an absurd degree, I couldn't use sword skills but for the last two or three seconds of the duration of my buffs, that said, during those two seconds I had absurd DPS. So I had to find the highest damage one handed weapons I could. Scimitars and Falchions fit that bill very well. Falchions had the highest base damage of all one handed swords, but slowed down sword skills and didn't get much bonus damage. Scimitars on the other hand, couldn't make use of many one handed sword skills or any of the drawing skills for curved blades, which made them a rather unpopular choice despite their high speed and base damage.

Anyways, I found a smith with the perfect weapon for me, a bright silver falchion with a blue edge to the blade. The smith was one of the rare girls in the game, and was one of the few to make use of the hair color changing option, not that everyone though I did as well. She was a loud pink haired girl who went by Lisbeth. She was a pretty cool person, but her pricing on the blade was well… a little steep for me. Not that I had any room to complain. I was the moron who wasted all my money on Argo and forgot to save enough for the actual weapon. So she and I made a compromise about a week ago. She would hold the blade for me, and later give it to me, if I could get her some ice cream. That's right, ice cream.

There was a rumor going around about a quest that awarded ice cream upon completion. Unfortunately due to the lack of good food, the price on the information was ludicrously high, so I've spent the last week hunting for an ice cream quest. I had acquainted Kirito and Asuna with Lisbeth and she had become our unofficial guild's unofficial blacksmith. I say acquainted lightly because Kirito almost never talked to her, but that's just Kirito. It took two weeks before we were able to talk normally, and the only reason we started talking was because we found mutual interest in the fields of computer science and Chinese cartoons, anime for you casuals. Asuna quickly became fast friends with Lisbeth. It probably had something to do with how they were both female; a rarer species in game than in reality. I didn't exactly 'talk' either. Most of our 'conversations' involved Lisbeth telling me to hurry it up with that ice cream or she would sell my sword off at a low price just to spite me. I just nodded and continued looking for that quest.

Yesterday I managed to find the quest. It was rather ironic where the quest was. Every day at around 4pm an NPC walks around the second town whistling a tune that is awfully similar to an ice cream truck. Guess what NPC gives the quest? So that brings us to where we are now. I'm currently out with Lisbeth in an ice cave the quest had directed us too. Lisbeth and I paired well enough build wise; I being DPS and controller magic based, and Lisbeth being a tank. We also were, like most high level players, extremely over leveled for the first floor, so we assumed we could handle a simple quest like this on our own. We did not, however, expect an ice cave. The first floor was mostly plains, so an ice cave seemed kinda out of place. Thankfully, I have a COLD RESISTANCE BUFF!

"Hey, Shou, cast your cold spell again it isn't working." Lisbeth gave of a shiver.

"The spell alone only prevents damage from cold environments and attacks, it won't make you feel much warmer. You need better armor." If you can't tell, my Japanese has gotten way better in a month. I would never fail a speaking test again!.

She looked at me in disgust, "Are you insulting my armor? I've seen yours and mine has far superior stats." She huffed indignantly.

I sighed and decided to explain to the poor stupid girl that just because it's bulletproof, a miniskirt is a bad idea in cold weather. "Your armor leaves to much skin exposed for it to protect from cold. It's just like in reality. Take my armor for example, I'm wearing a sleeveless vest and long pants, but my cloak has long sleeves, and while it lacks a hood, covers my body and exposed skin quite well so I don't feel nearly as cold as you do in a that short dress."

She then gave me one of those looks you don't want to see from a female because when you do, you know you're screwed. "Oh and what's so bad about my dress my stat muncher? All I here you do is talk about stats with Kirito and I know for a fact that my armor cleanly outclasses yours, yet you're saying that yours is better?"

I gulped and tried to come up with the best answer, "I-in this situation, y-yeah." I failed.

"You admit it! You've got some nerve!" She put her hands on her hips and leaned forwards. "You better shape up or no amount of ice cream will get you that sword."

While she was leaning over me I noticed a mobs quickly begin descending from the ceiling towards Lisbeth. While I may not be the fastest player in reaction time, I was an agility based character even before my buffing magic, and I quickly pulled out my sword and chanted the words to one of my new touch spells as I swung towards the mob.

"_Ignis Lamina!_" I quickly yelled the chant for the spell. My blade grew to about 1.5X its length in a smooth red glow, as I hit the «Frostbite Spider» square in the face knocking it back a good three meters, keeping it away from Lisbeth.

Magic in SAO displays a variant of the light trail left behind from a sword skill corresponding in color to the type of magic used, as it seems a full graphic display would be too resource intensive. Now ignoring that awfully familiar name for the mook, only Kirito knew about my touch spells at the time, and I was planning on selling the information to Argo after I finished this quest. I had received a notification saying I unlocked an «Extra Skill» for spending an extended amount of time fighting with swords under the effects of my own spells. Considering that is the only way I ever fought, it makes some sense that I would have gotten that skill first. Klein had done the same with unlocking the ability to use Katana's two weeks ago, one week before I did with my skill.

Unfortunately the attack's momentum carried me a little too far and I stumbled knocking over Lisbeth in the process.

"Why I oughtta knock some sense into you!" She glowered at me at first, but knew why I had knocked her over, "You have some explaining to do later."

I merely nodded in agreement as two more «Frostbite Spiders» emerged from the shadows. Lisbeth quickly pulled out her mace and shield and stood in front. I held my cheap NPC sword in my right hand and called my spell book to my left hand. I let the book levitate a little above my hand and called out the words for my best strength buff, "_Triumphator in testimonium!"_

Beneath Lisbeth's feet I could see a faint red glow signifying the spell had taken effect, and on the party screen in the corner of my vision I could see the symbol for a strength buff appear next to her name.

"Lisbeth, buy me some time and use that strength buff to keep knocking them back so you don't have to fight them all at once!"

"I thought you were the one who was supposed to do the work to get the ice cream!" Lisbeth yelled at me as she began making use of that hard bashing power of her mace to keep the spiders at bay. With the buff her health wasn't dropping very much because she never had to focus on more than one.

I began timing my spell cool downs together and self-buffing as much as I could. The one serious downside to my build was the sheer amount of startup time. After 15 seconds of waiting I had bestowed myself a strength and agility boost plus an elemental affinity to electricity. My casting cool down only had two seconds left and Lisbeth's buff would hold out for another 10 seconds, so we were in a pretty good position.

I rushed forward and screamed, "_Quodque vix tangere!_" My spell book glowed yellow briefly, and a yellow effect similar to the red one from earlier emitted from my sword. I made a jump and a quick spin to try and maximize the slashing damage of my weapon as I hit a spider that had taken around half damage, destroying it immediately.

I quickly shouted, "Liz I'm on cool down, give me three seconds." Just as a spider managed to hit me with one of its web launching attacks, knocking down a good 10% of my health. I felt pretty embarrassed at that. Lisbeth was a lower level than me and took only a third the damage I did from the same attack.

Lisbeth quickly nodded and made a motion with her mace. It glowed with vibrant pink light as Lisbeth spun in one quick circle hitting both spiders and plastering them to the wall. A very befitting attack for Lisbeth might I add.

My electrical affinity would wear off after this next attack, "Cool down's up! _Quodque vix tangere!_" I cast my electrical touch spell, the English name of which was Shocking Grasp. The yellow light extended from my blade once more and I made a quick upward strike against a spider plastered in the wall from Lisbeth's attack, destroying it immediately.

"I'm out of electrical buffs and on cool down again!"

"You don't have to keep telling me!" She then raised her mace above the other spider as it glowed a bright crimson, and then dropped it on the spider, not once, but multiple times. It looked overkill, like an arachnophobic person stomping on a dead spider. Remind me not to get on her bad side.

With the spiders destroyed we collected the loot. "Lisbeth did that one drop anything?"

"Yep, I got one «Frostbite Ice» from it." She chimed back happily.

"Well I didn't get anything, but that's the last one we needed so let's go complete this quest so I can get my sword." «Frostbite Ice» was the item we needed to collect, and we had just gotten our fifth one, completing the quest requirements.

"_Your_ sword? I think not. It's still _my_ sword if you remember. This was a quest to get _me_ ice cream, not _you_ anything." She huffed indignantly and began walking out of the cave.

"Wait I'm sorry this quest was for the ice cream!" I called out and sprinted up to her like the panicked male I was.

* * *

><p>Lisbeth and I sat on a park bench together eating ice cream. She was kind enough to let me keep my half of the reward now that we had acquired the recipe. It was surprisingly simple, and the ingredients were easy to come by so Asuna could reproduce it easily enough.<p>

Lisbeth locked her eyes on me with ice cream dotting around her mouth, "Spill, what spell was that? It was almost like a sword skill with the physical cool down, but that was obviously a spell."

"It was a touch spell, an extra skill much like the Katana skill. It deals magic damage from the spell plus the weapons normal physical damage. It's really great to stack with buffs, but the cool down times are horrible. I can't stay on the front lines for more than ten seconds before I get stuck into a cool down track that leaves me with only my sword to defend myself with and whatever buff I've got that can last long enough. It's very much a single target burst attack."

"Okay. If it weren't for that freaky damage I don't think anyone would use it. You did over 40% to one of those spiders in a single hit. That's pretty impressive. Kirito is the only other person I know who might be able to pull something like that, but not in a single hit." She responded, the ice cream that tasted a lot like vanilla having clearly lifted her mood. She had a bit of an obsession with ice cream as I had learned, but I had yet to ask why, and I'm pretty scared of asking.

"Kirito is a special case. He dumped every stat but strength and agility and has been doing the math at each level gain to produce the highest DPS spec he can, plus his level is even higher than mine. If anyone can top his combos in sheer damage output I'll be impressed. There is one thing I can do, or rather will be able to do, that he can't though, and that's area bursts." My eyes started glowing signaling my shift into stats mode. The last time this happened when Kirito wasn't around I wound up being tied to a tree by Klein's guild until I stopped. Thankfully, Lisbeth, having witnessed my intense battles of stats with Kirito break the super sayain barrier, she knew to stop me then.

"So you wanted that sword right?" She chimed in with the perfect question to stop me from unleashing power gamer hell upon the poor girl.

"You'll give it to me?"

"Yes, on one condition. You must obey my commands for the rest of the day no questions asked. If you promise, I'll give you the sword now." Her eyes took on a similar sparkle to mine when the topic of power gaming came up, unfortunately, I'm not the most perceptive person in the world.

I responded immediately, "I promise!"

* * *

><p>So when we returned back to the in the four of us were staying at, I had no right to complain when Kirito rolled on the floor laughing and Asuna struggled to contain her laughter at the sight of my current dress. Yeah… I was in a maid costume and totally not liking it.<p>

I learned two things to day. One, never comment on a woman's clothes. Two, never promise to do whatever a girl says.

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><p><strong>Sword Art Online Mechanics: Magic<strong>

All spells in Sword Art Online are cast by calling out the name of the spell.

Each spell is cast by its own phrase or word. Often times these words are Latin for the name of the spell, however some spells are cast using Nordic languages. This makes it difficult for many Japanese players to master a spell, often times it takes hours of practice before they can even cast the spell once. I feel like a cheater having English as my native language. Pronouncing spells in Latin is a joke for me.

Spells also fall into one of three categories, Healing, Support, and Damage.

Healing spells are unique in how they draw power from both a player's MAG and RES, averaging the two together to produce the spells effect. Healing support is necessary to any parties success, so half the army's mages are trained in healing. Healing magic specialists are often used as magic tanks because of their high resistance to magic damage that stems from the high resistance stat required to be an effective healer. Some healers forgo magic investment altogether and build a balanced tank build. These players are often referred to as Paladins for their incredible defenses.

Support magic draws its strength purely from the caster's magic stat; however, they have the longest incantations and cool downs. These spells are rather unpopular to train because of the difficult incantations and cool downs. Support spells often times do little to no damage, but have massive buffs and debuffs that support a party in numerous ways. There are some people who choose to focus solely on the spells or at least enough to where they are casting these as much as any other spell. I fall into the second category. The specialists have picked up the tag, enchanter. Despite their lack of popularity, any raid group needs at least one to be effective.

Damage spells are the most common type of spell used. People like to play the boomstick. The army trains the other half of its mages to specialize in this type of spell because these are the easiest spells to cast and they work well in groups. While damage specialists won't produce the same kind of DPS against a single target, they can deal area damage, making them the best crowd control. These guys don't get a special moniker like other specialists because, well, this is kinda the stereotypical mage build.


	3. Chapter 3 A Real Person's Pie

**A/N**: Hi. This chapter is complete trash at the end. Enjoy~

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><p><strong>Chapter 3: A Real Person's Pie<strong>

With the insurmountable humiliation that was wearing a maid costume in public over, I was the last of our group to wake up as always. I was really starting to enjoy life in Aincrad as of late. Kirito and Asuna were both good friends, far better than any I had had in reality. Lisbeth wasn't so bad most of the time, but there was that incident yesterday… She currently sat in the first position on my list of people I was going to get back at.

Aincrad had become a pleasant place for me over the last month. The first floor was a little small for the amount of people here, but it worked out well enough. However, it was starting to get a little bland and dull as of late. One thing that I found rather annoying was the lack of variety in armor designs. With the materials available on the first floor, crafters could produce cloth armor of many varying designs (hence the earlier maid costume), but they had a lower armor rating than the gear you started the game with. It was possible to find some better materials from rare mob drops, but with the rate these materials dropped I would say less than five people have managed to produce armor out of them. Lisbeth was one of them. She had made a short armored pink dress with some rare drops she managed to gather by trading weapons.

Aside from Lisbeth and the rare few with custom armor, every other adventurer had the same set up of gear that reflected his/her build. There were three types of cuirass commonly used by the strongest players. The first was your ordinary simple metallic gray cuirass that covered whatever shirt the player wore underneath. This type allowed for swift movement and provided a decent armor grade. It also allowed for certain types of cloaks to be worn. Kirito wore this, and, until recently, Asuna had as well. The next type was the heavier variant. It had shoulder pads in addition to the cuirass otherwise it looked the same. This type impeded movement for more armor, which made it rather unpopular among my little group. It also didn't allow any type of cloak to be equipped. The third type was a cloth vest that could be worn as or over clothing. This type boosted your magic and allowed for any kind of cloak to be equipped. The only type of cloak worth using right now boosted your magic, and could only be used with this type of armor. Mage builds always wore this combination, and, as a mage build, I did too. As of last night, Asuna had begun wearing the same combination.

Last night, after the maid costume event, Kirito and I managed to convince Asuna and Lisbeth to sit down for one of our prolonged strategy discussions. It had come to Kirito's attention that we had pretty much formed a permanent party with Lisbeth and Asuna, and as one, we needed to build synergy between out builds. Kirito and I had already meticulously calculated the best blend of stats for our respective builds. Probably a third of the weight of my inventory consisted of paper that held flow charts and calculations for my build. I'm serious.

Kirito was already a defined mundane melee DPS build. He could deal around twice as much damage as I could over the same period of time (stupid cool downs). He probably had the highest DPS spec in Aincrad right now, so we really didn't want to alter his build. I had spent more time working my build for flavor than function, but I still threw in a lot of function. I created a melee controller build. I could pick off weakened enemies with ease and inflect buffs on my allies and debuffs on my foes. Lisbeth wasn't new to the world of MMOs either, so her build, while insanely standard and flawed, was pretty effective. She was about the same as one of the Army's tanks, so she fit in well with the frail builds Kirito and I had.

Then we come around to Asuna. Ah Asuna. Possibly the prettiest girl in Aincrad, but also the one with the least experience playing video games. Her build was a mess. Her highest stat was AGI, which worked for her rapier use, but her next highest stats were tied between MAG and RES. That's not exactly what a fencer should have. So I spent an hour trying to explain in simple terms why she should start training in healing spells to flesh out our party. Unfortunately I didn't get anywhere. Kirito had started to explain when I gave up, but was quickly shut down by a frustrated Lisbeth who managed to convince Asuna to train in MAG and RES more with like two sentences.

All she said was, "Asuna wake up. These Neanderthals have been talking for an hour and I've had it. You need to train in healing spells and raise your MAG and RES stats. No complaints." And Asuna just agreed. I don't know what kind of black magic she used but it worked. Asuna had some built up unallocated stat points and she let put them wherever I told her too.

It's now morning, and that means I have to go sell my extra skill info to Argo before Lisbeth tells the whole world. I pm'd Argo about my new information on a new extra skill and decided to walk around town to kill time before the group would meet up later today and trek through the floor dungeon to find the boss.

Well I thought I was going to do that. I found the rest of the group lazing around the inn's bar. The inn's bar was a very simple room themed after a medieval European pub. Kirito was sitting at the bar drinking one of few drinks available on floor one bars. Asuna was sitting a ways down from Kirito doing something with her rapier, and Lisbeth was sitting on the back of one of the long wood benches in the middle of the room like a small child does on the back of a couch.

"What's with all of you guys today? You are never here when I wake up."

Kirito gave me a look that half showed excitement and half distress, "They found the boss room."

I stumbled back, "Are you serious? Finally!"

"One of the guilds found it yesterday. Asuna and Lisbeth got pm's asking us to meet with some of the other guilds to discuss an attack strategy."

"Wouldn't it be safer to just ask the army to do it? They control around 70% of the farming spots and have the largest number of high level players."

Asuna cut in, "They want to take out the boss without the army's help. If we take out the boss that way the guilds such as us will have the first pickings on the second floor as well as the boss Exp. It should be a good way to give the guilds an advantage over the army."

I scratched my chin and pondered the idea, "I see where they are coming from, but the guilds lack the defined organizational structure of the army. In a full raid like that required for the boss fight, the guild's separate leadership would likely clash too much to be safe, whereas the army's uniform leadership could handle the job much better. The possibility of the guild's attack plan being a zerg rush is a little unsettling. I don't dislike the idea, but the notion seems rather rash to me."

Lisbeth jumped down from the couch and looked at Kirito, "Well what are we gonna do leader? You've heard the tactician. It's your call."

I cringed at being called the tactician. Due to the nature of my build, I spent most of the time standing in the back on cool down. During that time, I had taken to watching the field and giving commands based on my observations. Asuna had called Kirito leader a few times mockingly, and so, after less than two days partying with us, Lisbeth had dubbed me the tactician.

"Would you stop making me make all the decisions Liz." Kirito sighed, "It won't hurt to check it out."

Lisbeth threw her arms in the air, "Alright! Let's go!"

"Lisbeth I hate to interrupt, but the meeting does not start for another two hours. There is no point in leaving now." Asuna chimed in, breaking Lisbeth's little march.

"Right. I knew that. Kirito was just about to take me shopping, wasn't that right?" Lisbeth gave Kirito that one look of pure womanly evil that no man ever wants to see.

He nervously scratched the back of his head, "Uh, yeah. We can go shopping for something." He caved. Not an ounce of resistance was put up.

Asuna puffed her cheeks and slouched on the counter as Lisbeth pulled Kirito out of the inn by his collar. For some reason both Asuna and Lisbeth had been clinging to Kirito like glue recently. I can guess why Asuna always hung around him, I mean, he did save her life somehow. Lisbeth was a mystery to me. In the week and a few days she had been hanging around us, she almost never talked to Kirito, rather, he almost never talked back. In a group Kirito didn't have a hard time conversing and was pretty normal; he could even introduce himself to new people (an ability I really wish I had). However, if you ever cornered him, he would become very awkward very quickly.

"Eh, Asuna… we should probably do something?" As you've probably just noticed, I can't talk to pretty girls. Well… I can, I'm just really awkward at the start.

She moved to where her face was flat on the counter, "I did not want to go shopping with him or anything."

Tsun! Tsun! I call tsundere!

Asuna suddenly sat up, "I know what we can do." She stated with indignation as she lowered her fist onto her palm.

If hanging out with Lisbeth for the last week has taught me anything, it's that I'm probably going to regret this, "So what exactly would that be?"

"I have been experimenting with some ingredients to try and make more interesting dishes. The amount of food available has started to get rather bland and I am trying to create a new dish. Unfortunately some of these dishes turnout odd. I would like it if you could be a taste tester for me please?"

Well that might not be so bad. I get to eat. Heh… heh heh… Food. "I don't see why not. You should've asked Kirito earlier too. Doesn't matter what it is as long as it's different from the food we've been eating we'll try it. Good or bad."

Asuna huffed and walked upstairs to the rooms. I almost asked myself 'what did I say?' almost. I have made a discovery today. Tsunderes are not limited fictional characters. Apparently they do exist in reality. I'm awesome for my powers of perception. No, seriously, picking up on that was like a huge deal for me. When I was younger, I was dense on the level of anime harem lead, which, might I add, does not attract girls. Middle school was rather suckish because of that. It made people poke fun at me all the time because I would never catch on to what they were doing. Thankfully, after years of practice, I have become an observant individual!

So anyways I should not have mentioned Kirito…

Asuna walked into the room and turned to face me,"Shou you are waiting here. I do not want you to come in until I am finished. Got it?"

"Y-yes ma'am!" I'm about 90% sure I pissed her off more than she already was. I think I'm going to regret this.

After around five minutes Asuna called in a musical tone, "Oh Shou, you can come in now~"

"So what will we be having, or are you going to poison me?" Diarrhea of the mouth syndrome activated.

Asuna tilted her head, "You have been near Lisbeth to long. Why would I try to poison you?"

Her honest expression made me doubt any ill intentions she may have had towards me. Asuna is tsun not yan. Remember that Shou.

On the small table there lay various sandwiches and pies. I was impressed to say the least. On floor one you had one kind of meat, bread, and a few fruits. That was it. No fancy spices or anything like that. I had never even seen a pie before, and I had been eating Asuna's cooking for weeks now.

"W-what? A pie? Are you serious?" My stomach began to rule my mind. Listen ladies, there is truth behind the old saying, _'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.'_

"Of course! I told you I have been experimenting. I want you to try it and tell me which ones are the best. I have narrowed down the options to these, but I cannot decide." Asuna beamed, holding a ladle in her hand.

I sat down and started eating, "What are you making these for?"

"T-that is a s-secret. Do not tell Kirito about this!"

Right, right. I forgot. Tsunderes are like that. "Well this is great!" I motioned to one of the pies I had been eating, "Is this an apple pie? I didn't even know you could get apples."

"There is a tree in the Town of Beginnings that occasionally drops apples. They sell for 5 col each. "

I looked up from stuffing my face, "That's pretty expensive. You should totally make the apple pie for Kirito. The-"

"K-Kirito! I-I am not practicing for Kirito. I am going to make a dinner for the whole group after we defeat the boss!" She quickly spat out.

I of course took it and ran with it, "I'll have to hold you to that then. I'm sure Lisbeth and Kirito would love to try this. It's the best food I've had sense coming here." And probably the only real food I've had that is normal for me. "But why'd you want me to taste test it?"

"T-that is because I needed advice from someone on what to make, and you would not tell anyone if I asked you!" Asuna's face was fairly red at this point, but she was still a whole lot better than when I brought up Kirito. She's been pretty enamored with the guy. Lucky Kirito.

"I see. Well I'm glad you trust me with this and I hope you can trust me in battle. If we are going to fight this boss soon, I'm going to need all the cooperation I can get. We haven't fought together much, so I hope you can forgive my doubt. I know Kirito and Lisbeth will listen to what I have to say when the situation gets rough, and I hope you will too. You're crucial to our party's survival Asuna. Remember that."

Asuna stopped blushing, I'm glad that worked, "Is that why Lisbeth has been calling you the Tactician?"

I sighed, "More or less, yes. I know you've been in the group for a while and we've partied a few times, but I have yet to be in a serious fight with you on my side, so I don't know how to handle it. I've been partying with Kirito for a long time now, and Lisbeth and I have been through a few rough spots, so I know what to expect from them. You are a bit of a mystery."

"I will try my best to help Kirito and Lisbeth."

"And I believe you. I spend most of my time standing in the back or a safer area on cool down from my spells, and because of that I will be watching the field. I need you to listen for my voice above all others. If someone calls for help and I do not tell you to help them, ignore it. Even if it is Kirito or Lisbeth I want you to ignore it. No one will die under my watch, and I need you to trust me on that."

Asuna looked down, "This is not a game anymore is it Shou?"

"I don't think it ever was. When Kayaba brought life and death into this world, he made it our reality."

Asuna looked up, her eyes starting to water, "I am scared Shou. I do not want to lose any of you. I-I have never played a MMO before Sword Art Online. I only borrowed this game from my brother. I do not know how to fight in a party, and I am scared that I will let you all down. I am afraid of killing you."

She was now crying. I made a girl cry. I feel like the scum of the earth now.

"Asuna listen to me. You will not be the cause of anyone's death. If anyone will be to blame, it will be me. I am the party's active strategist. I call the shots. If you can trust me to do the right thing, then there is no need for you to worry. Besides, even if SAO isn't a game anymore, it originally was, and that means it plays like one. In all games, if the player has enough skill, the player will win. I've seen you in combat. You have more than enough skill."

Asuna wiped her eyes, "I will trust you, tactician."

I cringed and jumped back a little on reflex from being called that. Hey it bothers me. Anyways, doing that while sitting down wasn't smart and I went down to the ground along with the chair, and, oddly enough, my pie. Mark the date, December 2nd 2022, my poor pie died in a glorious shower of once delicious polygons.

Asuna laughed a little at my fall then a lot at my face as the pie vanished from existence.

After I managed to collect my composure, Asuna continued, "Thank you for saying that. I needed something, and that worked."

"I don't blame you. This game is deadly, and many people are terrified."

"But you and Kirito look so calm. You two never look sad or scared unless something bad is about to happen. I want to be strong like you."

I looked her in they, or at least tried to before looking away rather quickly. What? She's hot and I'm a nerd. "K-Kirito and I are gamers. For us, this is almost a dream come true even with the death penalty. The joy shows much more than the fear. But don't think for a second we are not scared. We have family to return to back home. Family that is scared for our safety. Family that we have to return to, alive." And family that will never let us anywhere near a game again. Such is life…

Asuna nodded and the conversation returned to more normal topics. I now knew Asuna much better than I had before. She appeared more human to me, and, well, less attractive you could say. You know how ugly people stop being ugly if you talk to them enough and find out they are really cool? The same thing is happening here but in reverse. As Asuna became more human she became easier to talk to and less intimidating.

I know I've said that living in this game is fantastic, but I'm starting to feel really bad about it. I said what I thought Asuna needed to hear, even if I didn't believe it myself. However, the more I talked to her the more I believed what I said, and the more I wanted to work to get out. Aincrad was not a place for people like Asuna. She was not a gamer, and she was still a person. I had always thought of the normal plebs as meat or potatoes, but Asuna had managed to change my mind. They may be filthy casuals, but they are still people.

An hour and a half past in the blink of an eye, and it was time we left for the boss meeting. I had gained a good friend in that short time span. My view on people had changed as well. Now I had a reason for clearing the game, not for myself (well I really did want to be the strongest player…), but for those who could not do it themselves. Asuna was naturally talented, but there were so many people out there who were just like her, yet had no talent. As much as I hate casuals, I like people. Real people. If I could just save one real person, all my effort would be worth it.

We left for the boss meeting.

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><p><strong>AN:** Here's a new section. The previous chapter was updated with its own section too~

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><p><strong>Sword Art Online Mechanics: Cool Downs<strong>

In SAO there are two types of cool downs, casting and physical.

A casting cool down applies to spells only and prevents the activation of another spell until its time limit is up or a sword skill until twice its time limit or ten seconds, whichever is longer. During a casting cool down, the player still has the ability to move and fight without sword skills. Casting cool downs can range from very short for simple attacking spells to very long for the more complex buffs and offensive spells. Casting cool downs are almost always longer than physical cool downs.

Physical cool downs occur at the end of a sword skill. Physical cool downs are very short and in some cases can be mistaken for lag. Physical cool downs prevent the user from moving for the duration of the cool down. A casting cool down is effectively applied for the activation of spells after the use of a sword skill, but the rule still applies. If twice the duration of the physical cool down is longer than ten seconds, then that will be applied as casting cool down for spells over the normal ten seconds.

Touch spells have a unique type of cool down. Their cool down is a blend of physical and casting cool downs. The physical cool down of a touch spell is very brief, more so than a sword skill of the same power, however, the spell still leaves a casting cool down preventing massive combos like those created with certain sword skills such as «linear». The casting cool down will be shorter than a spell of the same power due to the melee nature of a touch spell and lack of range. Touch spells are not very popular due to how a squishy build is required for them to be effective and their cool downs in melee make it much more dangerous than a normal melee build.


End file.
